In The News 01-18-2013

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Mike
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January 17, 2013 @ 1:23 PM
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In The News 01-18-2013Your Weekly Update In The World Of Technology

Facebook’s Big Announcement

Disclaimer: I have not used Facebook’s Graph Search, though I am on the waiting list to beta test it.

Facebook unveiled one of its biggest updates this past week. That update is called Graph Search. So what is Graph Search and why is it big news?

Currently searching on Facebook is rather limited. You type something in the search box and you’ll either find a person (friends show up first), a business/company, or some celebrity page. It’s simple and straightforward but lacks a lot of details someone may want from a search. Graph Search changes all that. Currently in closed beta-testing, Graph Search is a Facebook network-wide search feature. Want to find people who went to Ohio State University and still live in Columbus? Search it and BAM… you get results of friends as well as friends of friends. Let’s take it further. Maybe you want to find people who enjoy Star Wars, are located within your city (let’s say Toledo), and enjoy tacos. Search it and BAM… you have a guest list for your next Star Wars movie marathon, where you just happen to be serving tacos. Nerds unite!

Currently Graph Search uses the 1 billion profiles as well as billions of photos to gather information and display your search results. Search goes beyond just finding a person. You can now use it to search through location, school, work place, likes, music you’ve listened to, and more! Of course, the information that Graph Search can access is limited to an individuals privacy settings. So if you’re worried that a friend of a friend can search out that you like Underwater Basket-Weaving, then you may want to update your privacy.

As I mentioned, Graph Search is currently in closed beta testing with a waiting list available. Facebook will also announce when it will be available to the general Facebook public.

Bold Predictions For 2014 International CES

I’ve been introducing you to the new technology displayed at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, both awesome and strange, this past week. Now with the news of last week’s show starting to wind down, I think it’s time to make some bold predictions for what we may see at CES next year.

8K Televisions: 8K televisions actually exist already, but they are nowhere near being consumer ready. While 4K televisions were all the rage this year, and I’m willing to bet we’ll see a lot more 4K content next year, television companies aren’t going to pass up the chance to show something new and awesome.

Windows 8 will actually be popular: It’s actually not doing that bad since its release back in October, but most users aren’t able to make full use of the new operating system. Windows 8 was built with touchscreen in mind, so we should see touchscreen enabled monitors become more of a norm by next year.

Self-driving cars! Finally!: I touched on this subject yesterday, and unfortunately no one had a working example of a self-driving vehicle at this year’s CES. Fortunately, many car manufacturers are jumping on the self-driving bandwagon and I would be surprised to not see a working example at next year’s show.